Rally of communists and youth in East Berlin. Small socialist flag on table. A boy reads during a rally. Historical view of parade by German soldiers in 1930's Berlin Germany. Russian tanks repel people on streets during anti-Communist protest of 1953. Aerial view of Brandenburg Gate area and refugees fleeing in thousands from East Berlin to West Berlin. Revitalized West Berlin, with new construction. A building in construction and another new building seen. Modern stores with show windows displaying abundant goods including cameras and foods. People at a a busy food or deli counter and in sidewalk cafes and restaurants. Busy streets of West Berlin with early 1960s automobiles. Enduring flame monument in West Berlin Inscription on the pedestal reads 'Freiheit Recht Freide' meaning Freedom, Rights, Peace. At a conference with allies including Britain in 1960 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev walks down steps and gets into car. British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan with others walks down steps. Animated Khrushchev addresses gathering in Russian, forcefully and defiantly. MacMillan responds encouraging peaceful negotiations and no force. Newly elected Mayor Willy Brandt of West Berlin addresses people. United States President John F Kennedy with Premier Khrushchev, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and others at meeting in Vienna Austria. British flag at Headquarters of Berlin British Sector. Military police jeep stops near a sign. Soldier looks through binoculars at East West border of Berlin before Berlin Wall was substantial. During free elections in West Berlin people put their vote in ballot box. Box opened and counting of votes progresses. People see results on board. Nearly empty streets of East Berlin. Destroyed buildings of East Berlin still not repaired after World War II. The Spittelmarkt area, formerly a busy shopping market, now deserted and desolate. Mayor Brandt meets refugees and speaks over the microphone.

Unrest in Germany in 1930's during crisis of unemployment and inflation that had followed after World War I. A closed and boarded-up German factory. Two barefooted, jobless German men sleep in a park. During Great Depression in the United States, a weary woman is seen walking through an alley and looking in garbage cans. Sign for Los Angeles California Leather Company seen on building behind her. Children play in streets of a slum area. In Germany, scene of boys in training in Hitler Youth and carrying shovels, then carrying rifles and learning low crawling and military attack techniques. German farmers plowing on farms. Several night scenes including Nazis and brownshirts on the march, burning of books. Secret police or Gestapo and soldiers escort a church priest or clergy out of a church. During time of rising anti-Jewish sentiment in Nazi-led Germany, scenes of abuse and Gestapo arrests of some German citizens such as Jewish people, suspected Communists, political foes, and others critical of the Nazi party. A group of people attack and beat Jewish people in streets. A parade by the Wehrmacht German troops. Rearmament of Germany in 1930's. Scenes from busy German munitions factories. A Junkers Stuka aircraft factory filled with planes being built. A German artillery factory. German Luftwaffe and Panzer attack. German tanks roll over landscape. Scenes at end of war of burning German cities. Women run through bomb-wrecked streets of devastated Berlin during an aerial bombing raid by Allied aircraft. One woman falls as she runs. A woman and children race for the doors of a bomb shelter in Germany. The bomb wrecked streets of Berlin heaped with rubble and wreckage. Elderly German man walks through ruins. Small locomotive train running carrying cars of cleared rubble. German civilian dig potatoes in gardens. German women stand atop a collapsed building pile and clear rubble with shovels. German man waters a newly planted garden with empty shells of wrecked buildings in background. Newspapers produced by M.G. seen in newspaper printing press and rolling off presses. Binding of booklets and magazines from a German printing press. Sculptured bust of Goethe superimposed over books written by Goethe and Schiller. A montage shows in contrast the peaceful life in Germany before war, and scenes again of war, with alternating scenes: German police officer escorts children across a street, book burning by Nazis, Gestapo violent arrest of a German citizen who is being hauled away. A German football match in a stadium. Cook serves food to a man. A man in a concentration camp tips a bowl to his mouth. German children playing in a pool. Scenes of bomb explosions. A peaceful waterfall.

A crowd of Gernan civilians is seen gathered in front of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany. Glimpses of Leaders, of the German Communist Spartacus League, including Rosa Luxemburg. Scenes of unrest during the Spartacist uprising (Spartakusaufstand) in January, 1919. Scenes of post-World War hardship and deprivation for German citizens, who are shown living in improvised housing, cooking outdoors, scavenging for coal. A sign is displayed for the Winterhilfswerk (WHW) Winter Relief program run in the 1930s by the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People's Welfare). It states its aim against Hunger and Cold (Gegen Hunger u Kalte). Uniformed persons with swastika arm bands, including Joseph Goebbels, and Hermann Goering, of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), are seen surrounded by enthusiastic German citizens. Closeup of hot meal being dispensed and people eating. A sign in the background refers to the People's Welfare Program. People gathered in an outdoor food dispensing station, under a banner reading: "Berlin isst heute sein eintopfgericht" (Berlin is eating its stew today). Another glimpse of hot food being ladled into a dish. Adolf Hitler stands and gives a haranguing speech from a table where Nazi party members are seated. A banner on the front of a steam locomotive announces Winter Aid donation related to East Hannover (Winterhilfe Spende gau Ost-Hannover). Another sign refers to the 1936-1937 Winter Relief program (WHW) donation related to East Hannover (Gau Ost-Hannover Gifhorn W.H.W. Spende). Railroad train box cars are seen transporting contributions, from various places in Germany, to the program.

Nazi rise to power, rearmament and remilitarization of Germany leading up to World War 2, and actions related the Nuremberg Trials held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, following World War II. Exterior view of the Reichstag in Berlin. Joseph Goebbels at desk during the Nuremberg Trials. Hans Bernd Gisevius, former official of the Berlin police administration, testifies concerning his investigation of the Reichstag fire. Hans Gisevius relates how Goebbels recruited reliable Nazis to intentionally burn down the Reichstag as a propaganda stunt to help the Nazi movement. Nuremberg War Trial defendants stand in their dock including Herman Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Karl Donitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach and Fritz Sauckel. Close up of Herman Goring. Footage showing firefighters spraying water on smoking ruins of Reichstag following Reichstag fire in 1933. A German police officer stands guard at the smoking ruins of the Reichstag. View from a high ridge of League of Nations Palace of Nations in Geneva, and then inside the League of Nations meeting chamber during the disarmament conference of 1933. View of a Nazi submarine launching in 1934. Steel mill operations and Industrial war materiel operations in Germany in the early 1930's as Germany rearmed and restarted war production. A Nazi party meeting in Germany where General Werner von Blomberg announces compulsory military service. View of legal document describing new military service law. View of newly recruited (conscripted) civilian German men with suitcases marching forward report for mandatory military training. Nazi forces in training march goosestep at training camp; Junkers 52 aircraft in background. Soldiers goosestep while walking bicycles in a line. Nazi troops trained. Scenes of remilitarization of Rhineland, violating terms of the Treaty of Versailles, as Nazi troops in 1936 march over the Hohenzollern Bridge crossing the River Rhine, with Cologne Cathedral rising in the background.

During the trial of Nazi leaders for war crimes at Nuremberg, Germany Hans Gesevius, former official of Berlin Police department testifies regarding his investigation of Reichstag fire. Scenes immediately following burning of Reichstag building -- destroyed as a result of fire. Firemen direct water hoses on smoldering Reichstag ruins. 1933 meeting where German representatives leave the League of Nations and Germany thereafter begins remilitarization and war production of armaments contrary to Treaty of Versailles. General Werner Edward Fritz Von Blomberg announces universal military conscription. Drafted German men receive military training and goosestep on a training field with a Junkers 52 airplane in background. They goosestep while walking bicycles. German troops march to invade Rhineland. Nazi soldiers seen crossing Hohenzollern Bridge over the River Rhine, with Cologne Cathedral in the background. Nazi official announces March 7, 1936 invasion of Rhineland at a Nazi party gathering with Hitler present. Nazi German troops march at a parade in Nuremberg, Germany. Nazi military officers observe the parade and Adolf Hitler gives a Nazi salute to the German forces.

Momentary opening slate (in German) cites a new rocket car, the largest in the world, designed by German chief engineer Alfons Pietsch. Closeup of the liquid-fueled rocket car at the Heylandt factory in Berlin-Britz (Heylandt-Gesellschaft für Apparatebau mbH). The rocket engine is ignited and creates a huge flame behind the car. It travels for a while in the industrial yard of the Heylandt factory until the flame dies. (Note: At the beginning of 1930, rocket engineer Max Valier was given the opportunity to develop a liquid rocket engine at Heylandt in Britz. He was assisted by the Heylandt development engineers Alfons Pietsch, Walter Riedel and Arthur Rudolph, who built the rocket motor in a test vehicle called "hellhound" after Valier's accidental death in May, 1930.) Change of scene shows a rocket car of Max Dalier being refueled from a liquid oxygen tank. Next, the car, with "Heylandt" painted on its side, is seen with Max Valier at the controls, driving about the Heylandt factory grounds, propelled by a moderate thrust from its liquid fueled engine. It circles about the yard several times.